


The Arithmetic of Damnation

by cjmarlowe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, post-season-3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-08
Updated: 2009-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/pseuds/cjmarlowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean isn't turning thirty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Arithmetic of Damnation

The pie is sitting next to Sam's laptop: apple, caramel-drizzled, flaky crust, and obviously just picked up from the diner next door. Hell, it's still warm, probably placed there in the moments before Dean ducked out of the bathroom to find his shampoo.

In ten minutes, Sam is going to come back and expect to find Dean still in the bathroom, maybe shaving or drying his hair from the shower, unaware there's a celebration in the making.

Dean doesn't want it. He even said he doesn't want it, every time Sam's brought it up in the past week. He just wants a hunt, he wants something to _do_. Maybe that's what he should've told Sam. _Sam, I want a hunt for my birthday. And make it a good one, would you?_

This isn't even for him. It's for someone who used to exist, and _from_ someone who used to exist, a birthday party recreated from the ancient writings of a people who are long extinct. The pieces are all there, but they've long since forgotten what they're supposed to mean.

_Let's pick a different day,_ Dean wishes he'd said at some point. _If we have to celebrate something, let's celebrate something else. Arbor Day. Pi Day. National Whiner's Day._ (Totally a real thing; he looked it up when Sam was twelve.)

He doesn't want to do this, and he doesn't want to think about what it means.

In five minutes Sam is going to push open the door with his ass, a hastily wrapped present in each hand, lumpy with duct tape, and a packet of thirty candles in his back pocket.

It's not Dean's thirtieth birthday. Dean's thirtieth birthday passed unnoticed as his flesh was being flayed from his bones.

Maybe he should just forget about his shower, leave a note and take off for the night instead.

_Dear Sam: Today is not my thirtieth birthday, no matter what your calendar says. I might look thirty, and my joints and skin and teeth might feel thirty, but I'm not thirty. Today I'm seventy years old. Forty years is forty years no matter where or how you spend it._

Inside his head, where some internal clock counts his life in experiences and memories, he's lived for seventy years. Funny, huh? He spent more time in hell than all his years on earth before it. He's known some demons up close and personal for longer than he spent with _his own brother_.

How the hell do you celebrate your birthday after that?

For Sam, Dean's last birthday was a year ago. For Dean, it was more than half a lifetime ago.

He can imagine the look on Sam's face if he tells him, if he points out the math that Sam's overlooked. Part of him _wants_ Sam to finally get it, but the bigger part, the part where Dean has always remembered how to be a big brother, wants him never to understand.

In one minute Sam is going to come through that door and sing an off-key version of Happy Birthday and pretend that everything is all right. In one minute, Dean is going to let him.


End file.
